Now, a few words about the pretended prophecies of the wonderful Nephi, which Elder Roberts claims have been fulfilled. Here is the way in which prophecies are made and fulfilled in the Book of Mormon: It either takes the historic record in the New Testament, using the very words of Scripture, tries to push this history back hundreds of years and then falsely claims it to be prophetic; or else it deliberately appropriates the genuine prophecies of the Old Testament. Then, after mutilating these prophecies more or less, with its peculiar Sidney Rigdon phraseology and most abominable grammar, it attempts to palm off these prophecies as original! The prophecy about the restoration of the Jews to their own land, which Elder Roberts quotes from second Nephi, and thinks is so wonderful, is simply a case of downright plagiarism. The conversion of the Jews and their restoration to their own land is repeatedly foretold by the Old Testament prophets, in such passages as Jeremiah xxx:3; Ezekiel xxxvii:21; Amos ix:15, and others. Yet the writer of this book of Nephi does not hesitate to take these prophecies from the Bible, modify their language, and then try to palm them off as his own. As for the two pretended prophecies referred to by Mr. Roberts, in II Nephi xxx:3, that "Many shall believe the words which are written," and that "They shall carry them forth to the remnant of our seed," the first is not a prophecy at all, but the simple statement of a well-known historical fact, yet perverted by the attempt to make it bolster up this modern book. In saying that it is the statement of a historical fact, we mean this: The Book of Mormon, as shown above, is made up of hundreds upon hundreds of Bible phrases and verses, and many whole chapters taken from our English Bible. As a matter of course, these Bible quotations which form such a large per cent of the Book of Mormon, are accepted and believed by the 400 millions who make up Christendom. The other passage Mr. Roberts misreads and misinterprets by making "the remnant of our seed" refer to the Lamanites. Then he assumes, without one item of proof, that the Lamanites are the same as our Indians. According to Nephi, the Lamanites were the descendants of his brother Laman, and were consequently Jews, for Laman was a Jew. Now Ridpath, the American historian, in the second paragraph of his history of the United States, sums up the evidence concerning the connection between the Indians and the Jews in this one sentence: "The notion that the Indians are descendants of the Israelites is absurd." Furthermore, the writer of the book of Nephi jumbles up his own history and contradicts himself in appearing to make "the remnant of our seed" refer to the Lamanites, as in 2 Nephi xxx:6. Nephi writes as a Jew, and his seed or the "remnant" of it, will inevitably be Jews and Nephites, and not Lamanites. The latter descended from Laman and not from Nephi, and hence could not be the "remnant" of Nephi.